.I am planning on doing a back up of our exchange server database.using Backup and restore wizard via system tools on windows 2003 server.Question before i start the backup do i need to dismount the exchange server?Question: after a successful backup using backup and restore wizard, wil it purge all the transaction log files? or should i manually delete them?Our server was never backed uop for the last 2 years and are facing lot of problems.database size grew upto 45 GB and the transaction log files are almost 145,000 each one of 1 MB in size.Complete mess it is., i am a programmer have no experience at all doing teh maintenance.Readin lot of material using offline defrag plus enabling circular loggin to avoid so many transaction log files.Thank you very much for the helpful information.

If you use NTBACKUP and select the Information Store, you can do an online backup ( which is preferred).There is no reason to dismount the store during this process and if successful, a full backup will purge the transaction logs. http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-2003-Backup-Restore-NTBACKUP.htmlExchange 2003 Backup and Restore with NTBACKUPYou should disable circular logging as well and do regular backups:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124459(EXCHG.65).aspxExchange Server 2003 Daily Operations

Hi,No you don't need to dismount the database before back-up and after backup finishes, it will automatically delete transaction log files. Circular logging is a solution when you have a third party backup application that doesn't delete log files.br,Sorin

Here are some links for more information:You can backup exchange with the store mounted.NTbackup is the "wizard" you are using.http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-2003-Backup-Restore-NTBACKUP.htmlhttp://www.petri.co.il/backup_exchange_2000_2003_with_ntbackup.htmhttp://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=822896http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842066/